Today is the day of fasting for Catholics requested by Pope Francis for peace in Syria. Given the modern misunderstanding of fasting, it goes without question that some will ask, what good will it do?

So what’s the deal with Catholics and fasting? For starters, it’s not a hunger strike. The goal is not to make Assad, or Obama, or Putin think, “Oh no the Catholics are starving themselves, I better change my ways.”

Fasting also is not intended to call down the grace of God to convince him to come in and clean everything up all nicely in Syria and make the governments behave humanely. God’s grace does not work that way, we can’t earn it. It is a free gift that he gives, and it is inevitable because we could not live without it. Think of it like a sunrise. A person could get up before the dawn and do a dance and beg the sun to rise, and pretty soon, voilá! The sun is rising. Mission accomplished. But get that person to sit and watch one morning without doing their dance, and sure enough the sun still rises. We can’t earn grace, it’s freely given.

So why fast? There are millions of things that fasting isn’t, but what is it? It’s a spiritual exercise, and a powerful one at that. Simply put, fasting uses the desires of the body to remind us to pray. It sharpens our spiritual awareness. We can easily get spiritually lethargic and dull without even realizing it. Fasting quickly snaps us out of our spiritual daze. Although we don’t earn God’s grace, it does call us into a response of love. When most will say, “why me, I liked my blissful ignorance,” the saint asks “what do I do with this?” Fasting helps keep that in mind.

When I skip a meal, my body tells me, “I’m hungry, I want food now. Here’s a hunger pain to make it very clear that I want food.” Do I really need that one meal? Not in order to live. So I tell my body no. I am denying my desire for food. Why in the world would I deny myself that? Eating is not an evil thing in itself.

It has do with entering the mystery of the cross. Jesus tells his disciples, “unless you take up your cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.” He then proceeds into Jerusalem where he willingly sacrifices himself on the cross for our sins and on the third day is resurrected from the dead. The New Testament in a nutshell; death and resurrection. So by denying my desire for food, in a small way I’m dying to myself and entering into the mystery of the cross, on which Christ won our salvation. It’s preparation for receiving the gift of God’s grace and being spiritually aware to respond to it more fully. It snaps us out of being ruled by every instinct our bodies have and spiritually opens a door for us to see things according to eternity, according to Christ.

What in the world does this have to do with Syria then? For one, Pope Francis has called for an end to our global indifference. We’ve become dull to the suffering of the poor around the world. They’re more of a nuisance to us than anything. We in America would rather rant about a pop start twerking than open our eyes to the pain of the poorest of the poor. Pope Francis has it right in calling Catholics to a day of fasting, it’s the most effective and powerful way to snap us out of our apathy and re-sensitize us to the Syrian peoples’ plight. He’s calling for something much greater than for 1 million people to like something on Facebook.

What effect will it have? A huge one, because we do not know how God will work in those who are willing. When millions of people are entering into the mystery of the cross and asking “what do I do with this?” there’s no telling who will be called in helping to resolve the conflict and bring peace to Syria rather than adding to the violence by bombing it. We need the grace of God, we need the cross, and we need to be profoundly moved by the cross. Syria needs the grace of God, Syria needs the cross, Syria needs people to be moved into peace by the cross.

So please, join in the fast for peace in Syria. We will find ourselves saying “what do I do with this?”